Gilbert Bagnani’s letters to his mother cease after his return to Rome from the East, but then both Bagnanis appear briefly in another source. A diary written by Minnie Burton, Harry Burton’s wife, is preserved at the Griffith Institute in Oxford. It covers the period from 4 May 1922 until 20 October 1926 and lists the individuals she encountered. For a brief background on Harry and Minnie Burton, see my previous blog “November 26 1922 Harry Burton and ‘Wonderful Things’”
Harry and Minnie lived at 25 Via dei Bardi, just outside of Florence. Minnie was on a first name basis with Ethel de Fonblanque Harter, a published poet and writer. A little research has revealed that the two women had something in common: they were both divorced and remarried at a time when divorce brought social stigma. Florence was an oasis of culture attracting artists, musicians, and “society” outcasts, such as divorceés.
Ethel Maud de Fonblanque (1856-1942) was the daughter of Albany Bentham John de Grenier de Fonblanque, who was himself divorced from his first wife Charlotte and remarried when he was seventy! Ethel divorced her first husband, Arthur Cornewell Chester Master, whom she had married in 1881, on 29 May 1888, and married the correspondent, Arthur Rede Hatfield Harter, in April 1888 before the divorce was finalised. Minnie Catharine Duckett (1875-1957) had first married a journalist, Alexander Young, in 1902, but petitioned for divorce in 1907. It isn’t known where she met Harry Burton: although her parents had moved to Florence, both Harry and Minnie lived in Chelsea, and they married in Chelsea in July 1914. Much later, in 1939, Ethel, Minnie and Harry all lived at the Grove in Sevenoaks, Seal, Kent, possibly a home for seniors.
It was through Ethel Harter that Gilbert Bagnani’s mother and eventually Gilbert himself, socialised with Minnie and Harry Burton whenever they were all in Florence at the same time. On September 23, 1924, Harry and Minnie were back from Egypt and at home in Florence. Minnie went to the train station with Ethel Harter to meet Gilbert Bagnani and his mother. The next day she had Ethel, Mme Bagnani and Gilbert to tea along with Miss Good, Mr Kenyon, Mr Isherwood (all still unidentified) and Mme Sergio: she was Margherita Fitzgerald, daughter of Charles Hoffman Fitzgerald of Baltimore, Maryland, and Alice Lawrason Riggs from Virginia, and the mother of the (later) radio commentator, Lisa Sergio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Sergio. On Sept 25 Harry was out with Gilbert in the morning and in the evening both Bagnanis, Ethel Harter and Ada Hutton joined them for dinner.
On October 1, James Allan, a member of the ultra-rich Allan family of Montreal but who lived in Rome, drove Harry and Minnie from Florence to Rome. The next day they took both Bagnanis to St Peters and the Vatican, and San Paolo Fuori le Mura and the Appian Way. The next day Gilbert spent the morning with them on the Palatine and they had the Bagnanis to dinner. On October 4 they picked Gilbert up and went to Tivoli to see the Villa d’Este and Hadrian’s Villa, the temples of Vesta and Tiburtina, and then to Palestrina to see the Temple of Fortuna and the Villa Barberini. On October 5, they picked up both Bagnanis and went to San Giovanni Laterano, Sta Maria Maggiore and “the Basilicata” (very likely the nearby recently discovered underground basilica published by Gilbert) before having lunch at the Ulpia (Trajan’s Forum) and going on to Ostia in the afternoon.
It appears that Gilbert was showing Harry and Minnie Burton the churches and sites of Rome and area. The Burtons might well have appreciated as knowledgeable a guide as Gilbert. They would soon be on a first-name basis with Florence Bagnani and, of course, Gilbert would come to know them even better in Egypt when he himself excavated at Tebtunis in the 1930s.
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